# Post-Completion Curriculum — Macro Study Program (DRAFT, activates when core complete)

**Status:** ○ dormant — activates when core program (block 091, Phase 5 verification) is marked ✓ done.
**Created:** 2026-06-26 alongside block-based restructure.
**Triggers on:** `_session-state/<DATE>-resume.md` `current_block` field advancing past block 091 OR explicit user activation. (Session 41 triage 2026-08-09: pointer moved from deleted `_meta/current-block.md` to resume file frontmatter.)

## Purpose

This file holds topic areas that are absolutely relevant for a world-class discretionary macro hedge fund manager, but require the core program as foundation. Topics here are NOT pre-committed blocks — they're a pool to draw from as Phase 7+ blocks when the core program closes. Topics may be added, removed, or replaced based on what the user demonstrates they need post-completion.

## Relationship to core curriculum

- **Core (blocks 001-091)** is dynamic — expandable (add blocks for weak areas) or contractable (skip ahead when Mastered) per `adjustments.md` rules 1-7. The user's standard: "the core material should remain dynamic and can be both expanded and contracted depending on which skills are weak or strong."
- **Post-completion (this file)** is not a fixed second program — it's a topic pool. Activation is the user's choice; topics here don't activate by default.
- **Cross-link rule:** if a topic here overlaps with a weak area in core, it should be pulled INTO core as additional block(s), not duplicated post-completion.

## Topic areas

### A. Trade construction & execution (post-foundation)

**Why these belong post-completion:** requires the trade-lifecycle foundation (Phase 5 process) plus deep instrument knowledge (Phase 2). Core covers trade *what*; this is trade *how*.

- **Position sizing & portfolio construction**
  - Kelly criterion and fractional Kelly in practice
  - Vol-targeting vs notional sizing
  - Risk budgeting across strategies (delta, vega, correlation-adjusted)
  - Correlation buckets in practice (beyond the framework rules)

- **Execution & microstructure**
  - Order types and routing (limit, market, iceberg, TWAP/VWAP/POV)
  - Dark pools and block trading
  - Signal leakage management (footprint, signaling risk)
  - When to cross the spread vs. wait for fill

- **Multi-leg trade management**
  - Rolling, adjusting, unwinding complex positions
  - Leg risk and sequencing
  - Trade lifecycle beyond entry/exit (the "middle" that process.md barely touches)

### B. Strategy & idea generation (post-foundation)

**Why these belong post-completion:** requires the macro framework (Phase 4) plus the cross-asset map (Phase 3) plus trade construction (Phase 2). Core covers *reading* markets; this is *positioning* on views.

- **Thematic investing at scale**
  - Building multi-year macro themes (secular stagnation, China credit, demographic shifts, energy transition)
  - Differentiating cyclical vs structural drivers
  - Theme management: when to add, when to fade your own thesis

- **Soros-style reflexivity in practice**
  - Identifying self-reinforcing dynamics before consensus
  - Boom-bust overshoot as a positioning tool
  - The difference between "the trade is right" and "the trade is right-sized for the reflexivity path"

- **Quantamental methods for discretionary traders**
  - Simple quant tools informing discretionary views (regime detection, factor decomposition, signal screening)
  - **NOT systematic signal generation** — the user explicitly rejected systematic signals per `00-methodology/signal-spec.md`
  - Reading other people's quant work without becoming a quant

### C. Risk management at the firm level (post-foundation)

**Why these belong post-completion:** trade-level risk (Phase 5) is core; firm-level risk is operational and requires actual AUM to be meaningful.

- **Portfolio-level risk**
  - VaR, expected shortfall, stressed VaR
  - Scenario analysis and reverse stress tests
  - Liquidity-adjusted VaR

- **Drawdown attribution**
  - Separating alpha decay, beta exposure, tail risk
  - Postmortem at the firm level (vs the trade-level postmortem in core)
  - Recovery from drawdowns: process discipline during rebuild

- **Liquidity risk management**
  - Position sizing under stressed liquidity assumptions
  - Redemption gates and side-pocket mechanics
  - Counterparty exposure management

### D. Business & operations (post-foundation)

**Why these belong post-completion:** requires running or building a fund. The user is at Alpen Partners (Swiss asset manager); these are operational realities of the role.

- **Fund structure & operations**
  - Fund setup (onshore/offshore/Cayman/Luxembourg/Swiss)
  - Administrator, auditor, custody, prime broker selection
  - Counterparty due diligence

- **Regulatory & compliance (Swiss + cross-border)**
  - FINMA requirements for asset managers
  - AIFMD cross-border considerations
  - MiFID II for European clients
  - Form PF / ADV for US LPs
  - CISA registration thresholds

- **Tax optimization & structure (Swiss-specific)**
  - Fund domicile trade-offs
  - Carried interest structure
  - Tax-efficient reporting for Swiss + international LPs
  - Withholding tax considerations

### E. Client management & capital raising (post-foundation)

**Why these belong post-completion:** requires running a fund with real capital. Trading competence (core) is necessary but not sufficient.

- **Capital raising**
  - Institutional LP pitching (pensions, endowments, foundations, sovereign wealth)
  - Family office relationships
  - The fund-raise deck and DDQ (due diligence questionnaire)

- **Client reporting**
  - Monthly/quarterly investor letters
  - Attribution reporting (what did alpha come from)
  - Transparency standards vs. IP protection

- **Conflict management**
  - Personal trading policies
  - Side-by-side management (separate accounts vs. fund)
  - Allocation policies (pro-rata vs. discretion)

### F. Information edge (post-foundation)

**Why these belong post-completion:** requires core competence first; the goal is to build an edge ON TOP of foundation.

- **Alternative data**
  - Satellite imagery (commodity inventories, retail traffic)
  - Credit card data, supply chain signals
  - Web scraping and text data (NLP-based sentiment)
  - Building vs. buying alternative data

- **Primary source methodology**
  - Reading Fed minutes / BIS papers / central bank speeches for signal vs. noise
  - Identifying what's priced vs. what matters
  - Building a reading cadence that doesn't drown in noise

- **Expert networks & primary research**
  - Managing information flow without crossing insider-trading lines
  - Building a network of operators (industry contacts, fund managers)
  - Knowing when not to act on a tip

### G. Behavioral mastery (post-foundation)

**Why these belong post-completion:** requires live P&L experience to be meaningful. Phase 5 covers the catalog; this is the applied practice.

- **Drawdown psychology**
  - Managing P&L pain during losing streaks
  - Sticking to process when every instinct says to deviate
  - Knowing when a losing streak is process failure vs. regime shift

- **Winner management**
  - Not selling too early on extended winners
  - Adding to winners (Druckenmiller-style) vs. taking profits
  - The asymmetry of being right early

- **Consensus trades**
  - When to follow, when to fade
  - Managing FOMO when conviction is missing
  - The cost of being early vs. the cost of being wrong

### H. Historical mastery — case study deep dives (post-foundation)

**Why these belong post-completion:** core covers one Rates case study (Taper Tantrum, block 005) and a framework case study (block 084). These are the rest of the historical canon.

- **1997 Asian crisis** — Thai baht contagion, IMF response, hedge fund casualties
- **1998 LTCM / Russia** — the trade, the unwind, the Fed put origin
- **2008 GFC** — timeline, fault lines, policy response, the failure modes
- **2010 flash crash** — microstructure failure, what changed in market structure
- **2015 CHF unpegging** — SNB intervention limits, FX regime shift
- **2018 vol-mageddon** — short vol unwind, convexity feedback, XIV collapse
- **2020 COVID (Mar-Apr)** — dislocation, Fed response, the dash for cash
- **2022 LDI / gilt crisis** — pension-driven convexity unwind, BoE response
- **2023 SVB / regional bank stress** — duration risk at banks, BTFP

### I. Emerging markets deep dive (post-foundation)

**Why these belong post-completion:** core covers EM at a high level (FX drivers, EM positioning). These require EM-specific knowledge beyond what the core curriculum covers.

- **China credit system** — trust products, LGFVs, shadow banking, the property cycle
- **BOJ exit / Japan reflation** — yield curve control abandonment, JPY implications, GPIF flows
- **EM FX regime shifts** — dollar funding, local-currency carry dynamics, the dollar smile
- **Specific country crises** — Argentina, Turkey, frontier market defaults

### J. Advanced vol (post-foundation)

**Why these belong post-completion:** core covers vol basics (block 010 yield vol, block 042 equities vol surface). Advanced vol trading requires practitioner experience.

- **Variance swaps and gamma scalping** — how the vol surface actually trades
- **Vol-of-vol trading** — VIX of VIX, term structure dynamics
- **Event-driven vol** — pre-FOMC, pre-CPI, the realized vs. implied gap
- **Vol surface dynamics through regime shifts**

### K. Optional / situational

These are not core to discretionary macro but useful depending on where the user's career evolves:

- **Crypto & digital assets (macro implications)** — what BTC/ETH flows mean for USD, the regulatory landscape, stablecoin monetary dynamics
- **Carbon markets & energy transition** — EU ETS, voluntary carbon markets, the transition finance thesis
- **Private credit / direct lending** — the shadow banking evolution, where the credit edge has moved
- **Insurance-linked securities** — catastrophe bonds, the diversification case

### L. Central bank response function — critical substrate (placeholder, 2026-07-26)

**Why this is a placeholder:** core covers the *basis trajectory* as the primary signal and the Fed's tool choice as a secondary, lagged, constrained signal (codified 2026-07-26 in Block 023 reframing). The substrate gap is the *institutional constraints* that shape the Fed's tool choice — diagnostic lag, tool-selection noise, cross-objective friction. This is the third skill layer (after read the basis + predict the Fed's response function as a constrained negotiation).

**Pre-triage note (2026-07-26):** user flagged that "don't fight the Fed" is a positioning rule, not a predictive tool. The PM edge is the gap between the market's leading read and the Fed's trailing response. To predict the Fed's response, you need the *institutional substrate* — legal authority, FOMC governance, political coverage, staff culture. The current study program covers what the Fed *does*; this placeholder covers *why* they do it under their own constraints.

**Reading list (pre-triage, NOT pre-committed):** to be evaluated and re-scoped at post-completion activation. Pre-triage candidates assigned 2026-07-26 (one book + topic-area triage deferred):

- **Lewis — *The Fifth Risk* (2018)** — ~250 pages. Journalist-readable. Maps to the three failure modes we codified today (diagnostic lag, tool-selection noise, cross-objective friction). Specifically covers (a) the transition problem (controlled handovers between administrations strip institutional knowledge), (b) the political-coverage problem (Fed appointments are political even when nominally independent), (c) the subject-matter expertise problem (Fed staff are economists, not market practitioners). **Single placeholder pick** per user direction 2026-07-26; do not expand the list until the post-completion activation review.

**Block sequence:** NOT YET ASSIGNED. To be drafted at post-completion activation. Estimate: 1-2 blocks depending on whether the institutional substrate is built from primary sources (Fed speeches, FOMC minutes, statutory authority) or from secondary literature (post-completion reading list).

**Cross-link to current program:** Block 023 Target 4 (basis diagnostic) references the Fed's tool choice as a secondary signal. Block 024 (FX central bank reaction functions) will reference cross-CB coordination. The substrate in this placeholder is the *why* behind the tool choice — the gap-fillers.

**Maintenance:** when the post-completion activation review happens (~block 091+), re-evaluate this entry. Read the placeholder book (Lewis 2018) first, then assess whether additional books are needed (Silber-Volcker, Ahamed-Lords of Finance, Conti-Brown-Power and Independence are the candidate Tier 1 picks from the pre-triage list, all deferred until post-completion review).

## Reading material

Full reading lists per section live in four companion documents (in `~/`):

- `~/post_completion_reading_list.md` — sections B, C, E, G, H
- `~/post_completion_ADFK.md` — sections A, D, F, K
- `~/post_completion_J.md` — section J
- `~/em_macro_reading_list/em_deep_dive_reading_list.md` — section I

A consolidated buy-first shortlist and the cross-link to Tier 4 of the main reading list is in `05-data/reading-list.md` (Tier 4 section). When a section is activated as a Phase 7+ block, the relevant companion document is the block's primary reading source.

## Activation

When block 091 is marked ✓ done:
1. The user reviews this file
2. Picks topic areas (not all — selective based on career path and interest)
3. New blocks are created in `blocks/092-...md` etc. with same structure (topic scope, status, plan)
4. The block sequence extends into Phase 7+

If the user does NOT want to activate post-completion:
- Mark this file `✓ declined` (not "active")
- Move to live trading with weekly synthesis only (Phase 6)
- Revisit if/when new gaps emerge

## Trigger file (for cron or manual)

If you want this to be referenced automatically at the end of core, add to `_meta/triggers.md`:
- Trigger: when resume file `current_block` field first points to a block with ID ≥ 092
- Action: surface this file's topic areas to the user

## Maintenance

- **Adding topics:** append to the appropriate lettered section
- **Removing topics:** delete from the section (or move to a "deferred" section if the user might come back)
- **Renaming sections:** keep lettered prefixes for backward compatibility with any referencesale

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**Reminder of user's standard:** "the core material should remain dynamic and can be both expanded and contracted depending on which skills are weak or strong." This file doesn't replace that — it supplements it with topics that are post-foundation by design.